Something for the weekend
(Bloomberg) — Greetings again from New York City, where we have the US’s lowest rate of car ownership. Doesn’t mean we don’t spend big on moving ourselves around, even if few of us will ever own Rolls Royce’s first EV, the Spectre (price: around $500,000). We have the world’s most expensive subway line.
Nigeria, the most populous country in Africa, votes on Saturday to pick a new president at a time of acute economic instability, with shortages of banknotes and gasoline leading to chaos and police crackdowns. Two leading candidates are in their 70s and, with almost half of voters under age 35, the election has stirred interest among young people who are giving a fringe-party candidate a real chance of taking power.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway posted record operating earnings for the year and its cash pile expanded to $128.6 billion. In his annual letter, a tradition for decades, Buffett said the company will continue to hold on to the “boatload” of cash and US Treasury bills. But the big takeaway was peanut brittle. Buffett said he and partner Charlie Munger sold 11 tons of brittle and chocolate to peckish investors at their general meeting last year. His side hustle haul: more than $400,000. Wagering on the stock market bounce was always a long shot. Now, after the S&P’s worst weekly rout in 2023, it looks like a sucker’s bet. While the reemergence of hotter-than-forecast inflation was the proximate cause of the latest plunge, another force is also at play in the second-longest series of weekly declines since May: high valuations.
Steel is threatening to become the latest area of commercial conflict between the US and Mexico after a bipartisan group of US lawmakers called on the Biden administration to restore Trump-era tariffs if necessary to stem a surge in imports. Steel could join a growing list of trade issues between the neighbors: talks on Mexico’s nationalist energy policy are now in their sixth month, and there is a brewing dispute over corn.
After a year of the war in Europe, several nations are weighing in with cease-fire proposals, including China and Brazil. But none so far addresses the key issue of the territory Russia seized. Meanwhile Ukrainians are helping their defense by crowdfunding drones. Don’t miss this week’s Big Take Podcast: How does Ukraine continue to beat back Russia? Bloomberg journalists Daryna Krasnolutska and Marc Champion in Kyiv, and Rosalind Mathieson in London join this episode to take stock of all that has happened in the past year, and what lies ahead for Ukraine. And here are some of the most memorable photographs from a year at war.
Spare of moment of sympathy for Palm Beach, the island playground for billionaires off Florida’s southeast coast. It’s turning into a showcase for the growing rivalry between the GOP’s top two presidential contenders, former President Donald Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, an all-but-declared rival. Each is holding fundraisers and hobnobbing with the likes of Tiger Woods — again overwhelming and stoking division in town. But it also gives a glimpse of who’s supporting who as the 2024 race takes off.
Banks are right to ban ChatGPT from their businesses, writes Paul J. Davies in Bloomberg Opinion. Some issues are now well known: The bot makes mistakes, or makes stuff up, and you wouldn’t want it anywhere near your coding. More fundamentally, clients are paying banks for real intellectual capital. “Would you want to pay so much if you thought a web-crawling robot was writing the pitch for your business?” Davies asks.
A scientific revolution has begun, one that may bring the fantasy of immortality a little closer to reality—at least by a few decades. On the first episode of The Future With Hannah Fry, a new Bloomberg Originals video series featuring mathematician and writer Hannah Fry, we join biohackers in a California laboratory and a neuroscientist in Tokyo to explore the latest scientific research and age-defying techniques, while also delving into the more philosophical questions of what it means to live to a healthy, happy old age.
Enjoy the reads. We’ll be back tomorrow with a look at the coming week.
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